On Mon, 6 Aug 2001, Austad, Jay wrote: > If you have your ham license, the max power you can use to transmit at > 2.4ghz goes from 1 watt, to 100 watts. The limits are lower on a high gain > antenna, but you still get more power. And you are immune to some city > zoning laws on how high your antenna can be. :) Everyone in ham radio is fascinted by the low (longer distance) frequencies. There's very little mention anywhere of the fun stuff you can do above 70cm. The problem with ham is that you're limited to 19.2 kps, which would make a COMPLETELY FREE dialup solution. If you're thinking cheap wireless, ham is probably not a solution but it'd be fun to mess with. For those of you on this list that have never considered ham radio, you might want to. It's a very nice geek medium that allows free communication over long distances. Yes, it's a geek hobby. You have to know geeky things to get a ham license. To any average geek a ham license is not hard to get.. basic math and some common sense will answer most of the test for you. Also, most hams have have shacks with lots of old hardware. Hamfests rock because shacks get cleaned out and stuff gets sold cheap. October 27 is the next Hamfest. http://www.hamfestmn.org/ And yes Jay, you can take your exam there. -Brian KC0IOG